Hee! This is the best thing, and I am super touched that is a thing that happened. I don’t think he realized that I’m in Canada, but hey, Mike Knox, I love you. Let’s hug someday, k?

Best, Worst, and everything in between: Lockdown!

Unfortunately due to real life grown up stuff (worst!), I wasn’t able to do a Best and Worst for Monday. So let’s do a quick rundown of things that were great, and assume that everything else was “Meh” to “This is literally the most boring thing I’ve ever seen” to “Wes Brisco, just….no.”

Mike Knox: see To Me, Said Hello To

Joseph Park: see Park, Joseph

Chavandez vs. the former WTTCotW vs. the current WTTCotW: This was, as Brandon often says before I make fun of him, OFF THE CHAIN. If you watch (through the most legal of methods, obvs) one match, it should be the Joseph Park match. If you want to see some really great wrestling with four of the six best things in TNA, watch the tag match.

Devon: He climbed the cage during the main event, and took what felt like forever to get the TOTALLY NOT FAKE hammer out of his pants, which led to multiple giggle fits on my part. It also led to…

Best: Bully Ray, World Champion

BULLY RAY, WORLD CHAMPION. My heart goes wooooosh every time I say that. If, for some reason, you have managed to keep yourself entirely spoiler-free, a) welcome back to the internet, there are some cats with words on them you need to catch up on, and b) Bully Ray was revealed to be the President of Aces & Eights. Not the higher power, mind you, but still, the de facto highest power we’ll see until they can find someone who’s good enough at contouring abs in fake tanner for Jeff Jarrett to come back (NO NOT JEFF JARRETT DO NOT BRING HIM BACK).

Besides the fact that Bully gets to be champion (wooooosh!), the best part is the way it happened. Devon descended the cage, struggled for a while, pulled out the TOTALLY NOT FAKE hammer and handed it to Bully. There was a brief moment where my brain went “Oh hey, maybe they won’t do what everyone who’s seen five minutes of this angle thinks will happen, and Devon will actually turn on Aces & Eights because Brotherly Love.” Then I remembered, nope, TNA, as Bully turned and whacked Jeff Hardy in the back. And I’m still okay with it!

We talk a lot about friendships in wrestling, be it Ricardo and Del Rio, the Robbies, me and Joseph Park, but the feeling I got watching Bully Ray and Devon hug in the middle of the ring, bad guys or not, is pretty much the best feeling you can get as a fan. At Lockdown 2011, I was incredibly dismayed that Bully and Devon were at separate tables, and despite how great it was meeting them individually, as a Dudley Boys fan, I want nothing more than for them to be happy and together forever. As someone who just wants all of her favourites to be BFF, and is clearly still reeling from the Great Bropression, a Dudley Boys reunion? Wooooosh.

Best: Meet & Beat Manifesto

This all brings us around to tonight’s Impact. The show starts out with Chavandez marching down to the ring, posing and preening, completely unaware that this segment is actually about Aces & Eights who proceed to beat them up and take over.

So let’s review: Bully and Devon reunited because Love, Smilin’ Mike Knox smiles all the time, they like beating up Chavandez, they secretly hate Taz and don’t tell him anything, and they wear a lot of plaid. Aaaaand I’m supposed to dislike them. Right. Okay. Keep going with that strategy.

Worst: Bully Ray, Guy Who Shouts Stuff

As much as how this played out makes my heart do things that should be concerning, medically speaking, I’m a little sad that Bully Ray has reverted back to “Angry Dude Who Yells Stuff.” Thinking back over everything Bully has done, and the range of emotions he has both displayed and made me feel, it really shows just how underrated a performer he is. Not wrestler, performer. How much depth has he had in the past? How long does one have to refine their skills to be able to yell stuff and then go WAAZZZZZZUP??! The emotional turmoil has been leaps and bounds beyond what he’s done in the past. Even the little things, like that sinister look over Brooke’s shoulder that back then made you think something maybe kind of is totally up, but then in retrospect makes you appreciate the subtleties he’s been able to put into his character. Gone are the nuances and layers, and dare I say, charismatic enigmas to his character, and he’s back to being completely one-dimensional. Actor Bully Ray, you don’t know you’re beautiful.

I was at this taping too and I completely agree, the commercial breaks killed the crowd. At least we got a healthy dosage of Metallica, Macklemore and the Harlem Shake. Oh and that TNA TAG thing where you would get an “exclusive free reward from ShopTNA.com?” Yeah, that was bullshit. Not in a “here’s a 10% off coupon!” kind of a way, more of a “Welcome to Impact at the Sears Centre!…and that’s it” kind of way.

Also, the matches in the 2nd taping were actually kind of good, especially the X division matches, K2 botches aside.

I look forward to this every week now, thank you so much for doing it.
between here go hell come reference and the very detailed look at the chain of events of the biker gang genesis, it’s like we’re in some way two hearts beating for one.
BIG fan. HUGE!

I was hoping for the B&W of Lockdown so I could ask if anyone else noticed the point in the Brisco/Angle match where Wes knocked Angle down and could have just walked out of the cage, but instead threw himself down and did the slow crawl for the door so Angle could drag him back in with the ankle lock.

That’s the joke. It’s part of my new movie, Nerd of the Rings, which is just me typing on a message board for three and a half hours. Peter Jackson is directing, hence the running time, unnecessarily long exposition, and it being shot in 48 fps despite just being words appearing on screen.

I also attended IMPACT – great writeup! Bully Ray told me to eat shit, which was nice. I attended Bound For Glory ’08, where Joe and Sting had a barnburner – probably a lot of love left over from that match.

with all the excitment I saw from you guys here for IMPACT, I’m totally sure that non of you had 1/100th excitment as much as I did all lockdown-IMPACT long !!! and I watched them from home, WITH THE COMMENTARY !!!!!
me and my brother were LITTERLY, like really really, JUMPING ALL THE TIME IN HAPPINESS OVER EVERYTHING !!! EVEN WES BRISCOE AND TARYN TARREL !!!!!
I guess I’m toooooooooooooooo much of a “mark” for TNA … it’s gotten serious lately !

Quick question about the picture of Hogan and Sting, Fall Out Boys. How much has Hogan shrunk over the years? Every time he has back surgery do they remove vertebrae? He used to be around 6’8″, now he’s shorter than Sting?

I don’t see how Hogan makes sense as the higher power anymore. Sure those little things you mentioned would be nice touches in hindsight, but it would also create a history where Hulk knowingly married off his daughter under false pretenses, took multiple savage TOTALLY REAL hammer beatings, betrayed everyone who isn’t an Ace and/or Eight, and for what? Getting Bully in a position to steal the title from Hardy? He’s the GM, he could do that any time. To take over TNA? He already runs it. To betray Sting? Not only is Sting the easiest man in wrestling history to trick into trusting you, but that would be some Cactus Jack pretending to be a homeless amnesiac-level stupid mind games.

But even that would be preferable to where I think they’re headed: Brooke Hogan, Higher Power. With good actors it’s a compelling story of a daughter long-neglected by her famous father deciding to get his attention by destroying the career that she felt he loved more than her. With Brooke… We’ll get some hilarious screenshots.

I like the cut of your logical assessment of the motivations behind whomever is revealed to be the “Higher Power”. Hogan doesn’t make sense for the exact reasons you’ve outlined. He has nothing to gain by introducing Aces and Eights, he already has all the control in TNA. His entire motivation would have to be “I wanted to be a dick to everyone”, which I guess isn’t that crazy considering we’re dealing with TNA.

Ignoring your Brooke Hogan theory (which made me gag a bit). I think the two people with the most obvious motivation to be behind Aces and Eights are Eric Bischoff and Double JJ. Both used to “run” the company both got ousted by the good guys and both have beef with Hogan. The only other wrestlers I think make any sense are guys that have jumped to WWE like Nash or Flair.

Great recap once again. Was really dissappointed all weekend when it wasn’t up but was greatly surprised and excited to see it today. I am glad the second guest writer pointed out how annoying it is when a promotion holds an event in a small town near a larger one and just pretends that it is in the bigger town.

After hearing Tazz being hated on so much in this B & W every week, I think I ve come to realise that I must be his only fan in the world. Nothing in my week makes me happier than listening in amazement at the nonsense that consistently spews forth from that man.

NO ! you’re not alone :D
I hate his commentary and wish they’ll change or fire him, but until then, whenever I hear him TRYING HIS HARDEST TO COME UP WITH EXCUSES FOR EVERYTHING THE HEELS DO, I’ll smile and laugh !

Thanks again for letting me contribute this week! I really enjoyed your piece on who the President of An8 could be. I really hope it’s not J-E Double F… HAHA… J-A-Double R, E-Double T.

And UGH. I had to cut out my paragraph on my annoyance/disgust for Taryn because it became nothing but rage rage keyboard pound. The only plus is that I won’t have to see her in that stupid ref costume again. Maybe Velvet will lend her some fuzzy boots.

“Even the little things, like that sinister look over Brooke’s shoulder that back then made you think something maybe kind of is totally up, but then in retrospect makes you appreciate the subtleties he’s been able to put into his character.”

Trying to diagram a sentence like that makes my head hurt worse than Jeff Hardy’s.

Is all Canadian English as incomprehensibly structured as this article?

I’m not sure if your DVR cut off Aries/Sting too, but I’m shocked it didn’t even get a mention. The ADouble showed why he is just might be The Greatest Man That Ever Lived(If Dixie would pay for the Weezer song as his entrance, It might cure me of all forms of depression forver) by dragging Sting to the best match he’s had since WCW. It was fantastic, and I wrote on Twitter that A8’s should have been booed for interrupting the best match Sting has had in TNA. Just great work and a great match, and here’s to hoping that the four best heels in TNA team up to form a Mecha Dirty Super Bad Influence Heel God Stable for the ages, though WithLeather would have to find a new reviewer for TNA, because Danielle would probably go into a happiness coma.

I “looooooved~” everything the aces & 8’s did at that day !
but I found myself booing unintentionally when they inturrupted the main event, because they robbed us from the ending of that AWESOME sting/aries match !

not to fear anything, ARIES SHOOTS ON TNA AND STING BACKSTAGE, AND CHALLENGES STING TO A REMATCH !!!